EMC Retrospect iProblem

by Christopher G. Erckert
Small Business Technology Advisor

Until there was Apple’s Time Machine. EMC Retrospect was the most appropriate way to handle backing up a Mac office and while Time Machine offers simplicity that Retrospect probably will never catch up to, Retrospect will be sticking around for a while.

That said, the iWork 08 and iLife 08 that comes pre-installed on new Macs or purchase seperately, isn’t playing nice with Retrospect and if you don’t tweak Retro’s settings you’ll be protecting less files then you think.

Fortunately EMC has a work around. Hear the details straight from the horse’s mouth:

” This email outlines a problem with the “Documents” selector when applied against Macintosh volumes. If you do not backup Macintosh computers, then you do not need this email.

If you are using the “Documents” Selector to backup Macintosh computers, you must review this email and take appropriate action.

Older versions of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system treated folders ending in “.app” and folders with the “bundle bit” set as applications.

Later versions of Apple software use the bundle bit to indicate special folders that should be treated as a single file to be opened by an application. Examples of this include:

iWork ‘08 (all apps)

  • Keynote
  • Numbers
  • Pages

iLife ‘08

  • iPhoto
  • iTunes
  • Garage Band

We have also seen this change apply to some .pdf files included with Apple branded software packages

Documents created by these applications WILL NOT be backed up using Retrospect’s “Documents” selector. To fix this problem please read the

Knowledgebase document located at: http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=9632&p=2

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us directly.

Thank you

EMC Insignia Technical Support”

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

EMC Retrospect iProblem

by Christopher G. Erckert
Small Business Technology Advisor

Until there was Apple’s Time Machine. EMC Retrospect was the most appropriate way to handle backing up a Mac office and while Time Machine offers simplicity that Retrospect probably will never catch up to, Retrospect will be sticking around for a while.

That said, the iWork 08 and iLife 08 that comes pre-installed on new Macs or purchase seperately, isn’t playing nice with Retrospect and if you don’t tweak Retro’s settings you’ll be protecting less files then you think.

Fortunately EMC has a work around. Hear the details straight from the horse’s mouth:

” This email outlines a problem with the “Documents” selector when applied against Macintosh volumes. If you do not backup Macintosh computers, then you do not need this email.

If you are using the “Documents” Selector to backup Macintosh computers, you must review this email and take appropriate action.

Older versions of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system treated folders ending in “.app” and folders with the “bundle bit” set as applications.

Later versions of Apple software use the bundle bit to indicate special folders that should be treated as a single file to be opened by an application. Examples of this include:

iWork ‘08 (all apps)

  • Keynote
  • Numbers
  • Pages

iLife ‘08

  • iPhoto
  • iTunes
  • Garage Band

We have also seen this change apply to some .pdf files included with Apple branded software packages

Documents created by these applications WILL NOT be backed up using Retrospect’s “Documents” selector. To fix this problem please read the

Knowledgebase document located at: http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=9632&p=2

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us directly.

Thank you

EMC Insignia Technical Support”

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.